The race for Texas governor will decide control of the House

When Americans think about the fight for the House, they picture swing districts in Pennsylvania, Arizona and New York. But the truth is that the contest that could shape the House for years to come is the race for governor of Texas. If Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wins reelection, it could set in motion further redistricting that gerrymanders three to seven House seats out of play and into Republican hands for the long haul.

Texas Republicans have already shown what they will do with unchecked power. Last summer, under pressure from President Trump’s political team, they redrew the state’s congressional map in the middle of the decade, producing a map that could give them 30 of Texas’s 38 congressional seats. The new lines took aim at districts built by coalitions of Latino and Black voters in the Rio Grande Valley, Dallas-Fort Worth and Central Texas.

The Supreme Court upheld it and even went further. In Louisiana v. Callais, the court gutted the Voting Rights Act protections for communities of color from gerrymandering. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent that the ruling leaves that protection “all but a dead letter.” For decades, it was the law that kept Latino communities in Texas from being carved up and drowned out. Now, according to a University of Houston professor, there are virtually no legal limits on how aggressively partisan a map can........

© The Hill